OPINION: Internet traps youth in anxious cycle of constant information

INFOGRAPHIC: Social media usage and suicide rates.

By Stella Maze,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Internet addiction is not a new subject. Older generations especially like to frame the use of technology as a particularly ‘teenage’ issue, as almost a personality trait of young people. 

These accusations are often framed as an active activity we take part in rather than an addiction that has affected youth the hardest.

Being aware of constantly updated information all of the time is overstimulating and anxiety producing. 

“There is so much more for the developing mind to filter, sort, and make sense of than humans have ever had to manage before,” licensed social worker Rebecca Brunette said.

Being able to take a break from constant information allows us to sink in and experience things in a greater, more meaningful way.   

“One has to ask themselves, … what is (technology) taking the place of?” Brunette said. 

The amount of time spent online has replaced time spent in different ways. It also amounts to a less productive environment. 

“I get nothing done when I get home from school,” junior Cameron St. Andre said. 

But the internet’s effects strike at a much deeper, long term root. 

“Because it has become ubiquitous, we sometimes don’t even realize it could be a contributing factor to poor mental health,” Brunette said. 

Often, the internet is turned to as a form of escapism. However, it often results in more anxiety. 

“If I’m feeling bad, (the internet) makes me feel worse,” St. Andre said. 

We know we always have the power to see it all, which means we are constantly aware that thimgs are happening, from the horrific, to the beautiful. Young people are hyper aware of the existence of everything in the world because everything is presented through the same medium. 

Crimes against humanity have become so normalized through social media that we become desensitized to their depth. 

Not everyone has access to personal devices, but even without access to a personal device, there are so many advertisements and news, that the rapidity of the fake reality is inescapable.

The internet has been released on our generation, but we were not given a choice in the matter. Nor were we ever taught reasonable and healthy ways to use what we do have. 

“(The internet) has got to affect our growing minds, I think we are only now beginning to understand how,” Brunette said.

Brunette explained how exposure to the internet can negatively affect sleep, social skills, obsessive compulsive disorder tendencies, mood swings and can contribute to long term anxiety and depression.   

Except, it can’t be taken away now. The internet is now too ingrained into the lining of modern culture, that the only option is to move forward. 

Junior Quin McNeil said that a lot of their interests are inextricably tied to the existence of the internet. 

“I very much see my job somehow involving (the Internet), maybe software development,” McNeil said. 

The internet has brought about a brand new job market that offers a host of career options that would never have existed twenty years ago. 

This shatteringly altering power of technology, the good and bad, is here now. And the new task is to create a healthier, more nurturing and more human context surrounding and acknowledging the Internet’s power and effects.